The future was so bright for Laura Johnson. The daughter of a millionaire was heading for university after passing with top grades from one of Britain’s best schools.

Her long term – and equally highflying - boyfriend was coming with her such was their devotion to each other.

Yet less than two years later, Miss Johnson’s life was in ruins after a dramatic fall from grace that led to her being caught up in London’s gang culture and the biggest social unrest to hit Britain for three decades.

Today she was jailed for her part in the looting.

So how did this attractive and vivacious teenager, with the world at her feet, end up being the getaway driver for a gang of drug dealers and robbers during last summer’s riots?

“She had tried a good life that had got her nowhere. Now she had a bad boy in her life and she loved the thrill of it."

Miss Johnson’s early life was as far removed as is possible from the lawless “underclass” of Britain’s inner city she came to inhabit.

The daughter of a rich parents, Robert, 56, and Lindsay, 55, who run their own marketing business, she spent her teenage years in a country house in Orpington, Kent, set in landscaped gardens complete with a tennis court.

Laura Johnson with her mother

She wanted for nothing, enjoying all the trappings of a privileged lifestyle, including balls and swimming pool parties at her and her wealthy friends’ homes.

When she passed her test she was given a car.

At first she took full advantage, achieving nine GCSE A grades and four A*s at A-Level from first Newstead Wood School for Girls and then the sixth form of St Olave’s Grammar, the fourth best state school in the country.

Such was her academic success, that she would tutor younger pupils in English.

Like many young girls, she did have issues with her body image and began to self harm. The court heard she once carved the word “FAT” into her thigh.

However these were all swept away when at 16, she met her first love Rebyn Buleti, an equally academically gifted student at the school, and they soon became a couple.

They became so devoted to each that when it came to going onto university, they decided to go together, she studying English and Italian and he law.

A close friend said: “At our school there was a lot of academic pressure, but she did well.

“At home she seemed happy, her parents were together and she would have never wanted for anything.

“She came from quite a privileged background.

“She had a boyfriend from the first day of Year 12 right through to the end of Year 13 and then they went away to University together.

“They were completely devoted to one another.”

Standing by her family swimming pool

Perhaps it was the sheltered and untroubled nature of her upbringing that was her downfall, but when Mr Buleti called off their relationship, six months into the first term, Miss Johnson’s reaction was extreme.

In her own words she had a “breakdown” and began self harming again. Her descent was compounded when she was raped by two men, she told the court.

Eventually she was taken for treatment at nearby mental health hospital Green Parks House, Bromley after she took an overdose.

It was a chance meeting there with an equally troubled teenager Charlotte Fryett, 19, that would open her up to a whole new world.

Charlie, from a broken home, in south east London, was her gateway to a London world of gangs, guns, drugs and alcohol.

At the centre of this was Emmanuel Okubote, 20, charming, tall and good looking, he went by the street names Sylar and T-Man.

His life in Catford, south east London, may have been just 10 miles from Miss Johnson’s but it may as well have been another planet.

Okubote, of Nigerian decent, was a product of the inner city and a gang culture based around violent rap music.

His friends went by names such as Desperado and Mad R and many were members of local gangs like the Catford Wildkatz and the Anti-Showers.

He under-achieved at school, and turned to a life of crime and by the age of 15 had been convicted of his first offence, robbery.

Despite his mother being a leader at her local Pentecostal church, Okubote went on to commit a long-line of offences, including theft, drug possession, burglary, assault and possession of an imitation fire arm.

In 2010, he received his first substantial jail sentence - two-and-a-half years for possession of crack cocaine and cannabis with intent to supply.

He was arrested and charged with kidnapping and torturing a local rival by throwing bleach in his face. The case was dropped before it came to court.

Miss Johnson became infatuated with him and according to Miss Fryett would meet in his car for trysts. She began drinking, taking drugs and entered into the nihistic lifestyles of disaffected youths.

The journey from her home in leafy Orpington, Kent, to inner city streets of Catford, south east London, may be just 10 miles but it might as well be another planet.

But she made it often. She would wait outside his house in her black Smart car - the same one used as a getaway car for her looting spree - as Okubote’s deeply devout Christian mother would not let girls inside the house.

Miss Johnson denied she had sex with Okubote but his sister Olayemi, 17, said the pair would go to her older sister’s flat to stay over because their mother disapproved.

“Laura would always be coming around here and waiting outside in her black car to drive Emmanuel around,’ she said.

“She was infatuated with him and he would play up to her. He had lots of girls and always charms them by talking to them nicely. She was definitely more in to him than he was to her.

“She knew about his criminal past as he is well known to people in Catford, but this seemed to make him more attractive to her.”

At 7pm on August 8, Johnson went to meet Okubote in Catford, armed with a handbag full of condoms.

Throughout the day, they had been exchanging flirtatious messages detailing how much she ‘missed’ him as well as crude sexual references.

She asked him not to get into trouble so she could see him and made a reference to how she “didn’t like working hard, unless it was for sex”.

He replied: “Don’t worry you will get it.”

But the night she might have envisioned turned out very differently.

Although it is likely she did not intend to take part in the riots, she willingly drove Okubote and his friends around as they pillaged televisions, alcohol and cigarettes from branches of Currys, Comet and a BP petrol station in South-East London.

At one point it was alleged in court they even robbed other looters at knifepoint.

She claimed she had been forced to take part, that Okubote suddenly changed from friendly to threatening forcing her to "drive" them around as they looted. She said he had terrified her with a video of torture and placed his hands around her throat.

But in April a jury rejected this and agreed with the prosecution that she had willingly joined in, and found her guilty of burglary.

Okubote’s mother, Eunice, also feels that while Miss Johnson may be telling the truth, it is still no excuse for being in the area at the time of the riots.

“If it was not for who she is this trial would not be on now,” she said.

“All the other boys were dealt with and all the other boys were already in prison.

Why is she still not in prison?

“It doesn’t matter if she is able to get out of it because of who she is or because she is telling the truth.

“What was she doing in this part of London anyway? What was she doing if she doesn’t have anything to do with it?”